


Halves of a Whole

by Madoshi_Hikari



Series: Raphael and Warlock [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Aziraphale is Also Raphael, Crowley Was Raphael Before Falling (Good Omens), Crowley is Good With Kids (Good Omens), God just sort of Showed Up, Liberal use of Footnotes, M/M, Parents Aziraphale and Crowley (Good Omens), Raphael is a Steven Universe Fusion basically, Short Chapters, They adopt Warlock, Warlock is a smart boy, look just read the prologue, non-binary Raphael
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-21
Updated: 2020-03-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:33:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23246320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Madoshi_Hikari/pseuds/Madoshi_Hikari
Summary: There's a name that belongs to nobody.But then, where did they go, that they left their name behind?
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale & Warlock Dowling, Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Crowley & Warlock Dowling
Series: Raphael and Warlock [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1671442
Comments: 5
Kudos: 89





	1. Prologue "Before and The Beginning"

The Bible, as it stands, is fairly accurate.

There is a name, however, that belongs to no one.

That name is “Raphael”.

Now, you might be wondering, if Raphael doesn’t exist, where did the name come from?

The answer is not as complicated as one might think- the Archangel Raphael _did_ exist. Ne simply existed Before 4004 BC.

Before the creation of… well, everything else[1].

Angels are a very fascinating species, all in all. Their powers vary from simple flight and small miracles to creating entire galaxies with nary a thought.

Raphael, being one of the _original_ Archangels, was in the latter end of the spectrum. Ne held a rather great joy in making stars, actually. Raphael loved doing many things.

And then the Archangels learned of God’s Plans.

Satanael, beautiful, beautiful Satanael, refused to love anything more than God. Ne was the first to Fall.

Raphael… Raphael wouldn’t comprehend how destruction would serve anyone any good. Ne questioned the Plans.

Raphael Fell.

But nir love- nir Grace? It remained, too strong to be extinguished by the sulphur and fires of the Pit.

God, pained at the loss of two of Her Firstborn, molded Raphael’s Grace into a new angel. She called nem “Aziraphale”.

Very few days later (now that days existed, that is), a demon, named Crawly for his[2] snake form, surfaced. Below had sent him to make trouble.

Tempting Eve into eating a Forbidden Fruit was almost too easy, in his opinion.

Then his attention was drawn towards the Eastern wall of Eden, where he knew the two humans had exited. There was something… tugging at him in that direction? Curious.

Crawly dragged himself up the wall and assumed a more ~~(familiar)~~ comfortable form, charred-black wings stretching behind him.

  
  


“Well that went down like a lead balloon.”

The angel next to him blinked, surprised at the insistent tug his Grace gave towards the demon. “Beg your pardon?”

“I said ‘Well that went down like a lead balloon’,” Crawly repeated, unsure why he felt comfortable enough standing adjacent to an angel that radiated holiness more than even the ones guarding the other three gates.

“Oh- yes, it rather did,” Aziraphale nodded, unwittingly asking himself the same thing- or something similar: this demon felt remarkably… familiar. And not very malicious.[3]

“Still, bit of an overreaction, isn’t it? Throwing them out at First Offense and everything. And ssseriously, a single tree with a ‘Don’t Touch’ attached? Ridiculously easy… what’sss so bad about knowing the differenccce between Good and Evil, anyhow?” Crawly mused, lingering bitterness[4] seeping through.

“Well, it must be bad, if you tempted them into it,” the angel offered.

Crawly snorted. “They just said ‘go up and make trouble’. Not _what_.”

The angel hummed uneasily. Crawly looked at him[5] again. There was something off, there…

“Didn’t you lot get flaming swords?” The humming increased in pitch, suddenly. In fact, it sounded rather sheepish…

“No, no, you did, the others all had theirs, it’s why I took this exit- where’s yours?” A bit flustered, the angel turned away, wings ruffling uncertainly.

“Lost it already, did you,” Crawly smirked.

“…gave it away,” Aziraphale mumbled.

Crawly blinked, completely thrown. “You- what?”

“I gave it away!” Aziraphale blurted out.

The rest of what he was saying was lost on Crawly, because he was a bit stunned that _an angel had given away the sword they got personally issued from the Almighty Herself._

Seemed he came across a special case, here.

“…I do hope I didn’t do the wrong thing,” the angel finished his fretting just as Crawly remembered he had ears to listen to it.

Struck with the weird urge to comfort the strange angel, he turned back to watch Adam fight off an advancing lion in the distance as he nonchalantly commented, “Oh, you’re an angel, I don’t think you can.”

They both winced in unison as Adam struck down the lion with a rather unseemly (and strangely loud) sound.

Their eyes wandered to the strange dark shapes gathering in the sky.

“…thank you. It’s been bothering me, truly…” Aziraphale smiled hesitantly, the sound echoing in his ears already making him question his decision.

“Me too, you know? Been wondering if I accidentally did the right thing- that’d get me in a fair bit of trouble, too,” Crawly admitted, unsure why exactly he was sharing this at all.

“Well, you’re a demon…”

“Crawly.”

“…Crawly. I do believe your worries are unfounded,” Aziraphale hummed.

Crawly turned his gaze to the dark shapes in the sky again. He wasn’t too sure about that, honestly- he didn’t stick around Hell all that long, eager to take his first assignment ~~_(getoutgetoutgetout)_~~ but he’d already noticed he was a little… different to the others down there.

Suddenly, with a rather loud BANG, the dark substance in the sky ( _clouds_ , a voice long forgotten whispered) opened up and a spectacular amount of water began to fall, interspersed with bright flashes of light.

Almost unthinkingly, Aziraphale shielded Crawly from the rain.

“Thanks, angel.”

“It’s Aziraphale… and you’re welcome.”

Unbeknownst to both, a trickle of Grace dripped from Aziraphale’s wings into Crawly’s soul.

They continued to watch the rain.


	2. Throughout The Times

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They meet, again and again. Always seem to end up in the same places.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a bunch of Hebrew names in this, but for the sake of the joke - "Leah" means "to be tired".

The next time they met was in Israel.

Or, it was presumably Israel, anyway. The whole naming-the-land thing hadn’t quite taken off yet. Crawly – though he was rather beginning to question his naming choices – idled up to the white-clad form of the only other celestial being that seemed to have taken permanent residence on Earth.

“I see you’re still around,” he said by way of hello. The angel startled.

“Ah, yes, I’ve been asked to supervise,” Aziraphale nodded, privately a bit troubled he hadn’t been able to sense a demon right behind him. Then again, Crawly was a rather unusual specimen.

Crawly looked up at the truly massive boat and the countless specimen of animals being led up by Noah’s family. “So, this is what happens when humanity gets it wrong? Whoosh, great big flood, clean slate?”

“Well, yes,” Aziraphale nodded, unsure why the other was bringing it up even as he eyed the dark clouds already gathering in the sky with some trepidation. “Noah and his family are the only ones left that are in any way decent.”

Crawly, meanwhile, had his snake eyes fixed on a group of three children playing nearby. “But they’re drowning everybody else?”

Aziraphale, too, had now spotted the children. “Er… yes.”

“Seems more the sort of thing you’d expect my lot to do, really,” the demon muttered darkly.

 _Well, it is rather ‘your lot’s fault this is happening,_ Aziraphale decided to keep to himself – especially since he himself wasn’t entirely sure how true the sentiment was. “Well, when it’s over, the Almighty is going to put up a new thing called a ‘rainbow’, as a sort of promise… not to… drown everyone again.”

“How gracious of Her,” the snake deadpanned, causing the angel to puff up a bit.

Later during the flood, a group of three children[1] found themselves rather mysteriously in a cave up on a high mountain. Their names were Aharon, Chaya, and Rafoel. Over the course of the great flood, they found themselves being taken care of a veiled woman with red hair simply going by Leah.

“Who are you?” they would ask.

“Simply one who is tired of the young being punished for the mistakes of the elder[2],” she would answer.

And for some reason even Leah found herself unsure of, the woman favoured Rafoel, who had been one of four brothers before the Flood had come. The other children were not jealous, simply glad they still lived.

One day, a stranger came to visit, clad in white and seeming very surprised to find the four of them.

“What in the world are you doing, dear?”

And the children had thought- ah, it is Leah’s husband. No wonder a beautiful woman such as herself hides her face, it must be only for him.

“Aziraphale,” their caretaker had went in a very guilty tone of voice. “I didn’t think you’d find me.”

“Ms. Leah? Is everything alright?” asked Rafoel.

The man let out a sigh at the name, shooting the woman a look that equated to ‘really, dear?’.

“I would hope so,” Leah answered, giving Aziraphale a challenging look through the veil.

“I… of course it is,” the angel sighed. He knew he wouldn’t be able to bring himself to kill children directly, but he couldn’t very well leave them to be raised by a demon either.

And so, Rafoel, Chaya and Aharon found themselves being raised by two individuals so strangely alike they could see them being the same person in two bodies- one holding the light, the other the shadow.

Of course, when the Flood was over and the water had drained and formed oceans, the three children were safely delivered back to civilisation. Noah was quite surprised when he found them- pleasantly so, however. Having children not from his own family survive meant his grandchildren wouldn’t have to marry each other, which had left a bad taste in his mouth whenever he contemplated the idea.

He never thought to question the three’s miraculous survival- and why would he? Surely, if the Almighty hadn’t meant for there to be further survivors, there wouldn’t be.[3]

  
  


Aziraphale and Crawly, of course, agreed to pretend that the whole sort-of-raising-children-together Incident never happened, because it would get them in quite a spot of trouble if it was found out.

To be sure, they agreed to go their separate ways for a while, though strangely neither of them quite wanted to. Not that either of them would admit to that. Though England didn’t even exist yet, both Aziraphale and Crawly were already stubbornly English enough to deny feelings for the entire male population of the future island empire.

And so it came that they didn’t see each other until a certain Son met his end.

Neither of them were all that happy about it, having both befriended him on separate occasions.[4]

“Ah,” made Aziraphale when he noticed the demon had stood next to him. “So you’ve come to visit this sordid affair as well.”

“Least I can do, really, seeing how he’s going through all the trouble because of me,” Crowley (who rather enjoyed his new name, if not the event currently taking place) muttered darkly.

“Pardon?”

“Creator of the Original Sin, in case you forgot.”

“Oh, Crawly…”

“Crowley.”

“I’m sorry?”

“It’s… Crowley. I changed it. Crawly… bit too squirming-at-your-feet-ish,” the demon explained.

“Well, Crowley, it wasn’t Sins that made everyone here throw Yeshua on a cross if it’s any comfort. _This_ is part of the Divine Plan.”

“Like Sodom and Gamorra?”

“Quite,” Aziraphale grimaced. Oh, that affair had not been pleasant at all.

Crowley looked around at the gathered mass of people, quite a lot of which looked viciously satisfied. “What was it he said that got everyone so upset, anyway?”

“’Be kind to each other’,” Aziraphale grimaced again.

“Ah,” Crowley nodded. “That would do it.”

Yeshua’s first cry of pain rang out as a rusty nail was driven through his palm.

“Oh, I can’t bear to watch this,” Aziraphale fretted. “He was so nice…”

“… let’s ditch this place. Visit him later, when the worst part’s over, say goodbye properly, ey?”

“… yes, that sounds like a splendid idea.”

  
  


It was not even ten years later when the last angel on Earth spotted his apparently much less elusive than usual Enemy (accidental child raising notwithstanding) sitting in the same bar as himself, now with much shorter hair and adorned with a pair of rather stylish eyeglasses that at least covered the fact his pupils were slit, though not the brilliant gold of his eyes.

It was very eye-catching. “Whatever are you doing in Rome, my dear fellow?”

Crowley looked up from his wine (splendid invention, that) in surprise. “Tempting Caligula. And you?”

“Inspiring Nero. And yet it would appear neither of us is doing our Work at the moment…”

“Well, you need to take a break at some point. Have you tried wine yet?”

“Oh, yes, a splendid thing that the humans have done to grapes, there. Say, have you ever tried oysters? Petronius’ restaurant does them now, and they are simply marvellous.”

Crowley didn’t think much of food, but he accepted the invitation anyway.

“I do miss your long hair, dear,” Aziraphale later said, though he was by now rather inebriated.

“Well,” Crowley began, rather drunk himself, “well, can’t have people thinkin’ I’m a woman if I’m not a woman at the moment. Bless, this wine issss good.”

They continued to drink, and there may have been something else at some point which left both of them feeling strangely light afterward, but neither of them could remember what it was, so they simply ignored it.

Crowley continued to feel  surprisingly non-demonic.

  
  


Remarkably, neither of them really saw the other for the next 500 years, though their meeting then bore “The Arrangement”, whose existence both of them would deny for the millennia to come, on the grounds of not wanting to be erased from existence.

The Arrangement in its first form – doing the other’s work as well as their own should their assignments happen to be in the same location – lasted until Aziraphale almost managed to get himself beheaded during the Reign of Terror, due to which Crowley now included ‘saving that blasted angel’s life, apparently’ to his duties. Why he accepted this as his duty as soon as he’d had to do it even once, he wasn’t sure.

Though now in the 19th century, Crowley was beginning to get uneasy. For the past, oh, 1400 years, no one had discovered his and Aziraphale’s … relations, but when Hell did find out…

No, he needed something to defend himself with. Holy Water, ideally.

Fortunately, he had a source.

That this request would lead to a strop spanning an entire century and yet another ‘that bloody angel is _trying to get himself discorporated, I swear-_ ’[5], he hadn’t seen coming.

Nevertheless, he now had a tartan patterned thermos of Holy Water in his safe. This, much to his surprise, had Crowley feeling remarkably safer himself.

Of course, it was 2008 that things started to go rather down the drain very, very fast.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1]Crawly had attempted to retrieve more, but his power wasn’t great enough that using the entirety of it wouldn’t have drawn attention from sources he’d rather not draw attention from.
> 
> [2]At this point, it may be of note that Crawly never did quite agree with the whole “and every woman shall have agony when giving birth” punishment given to Eve.
> 
> [3]The Almighty Herself had been a touch surprised, mind you, but not unpleasantly so. She was rather glad, in fact, that the child she’d cast out in a fit of Righteous Wrath seemed to not be as lost as she’d feared nem to be.  
> She didn’t know when those two most unusual of her children had acquired Free Will, but, well, there it was.
> 
> [4]Yeshua found the whole thing terribly amusing, though he told neither of them why. He had a bit of a mischievous streak, but also rather thought the both of them should probably find out for themselves.
> 
> [5]He tried, desperately tried in fact, to ignore the fact that walking on the Sacred Ground in the church had barely tingled his feet.  
> He’d watched a Disposable Demon attempt to enter a church once.  
> By now, he was… honestly unsure if Holy Water would actually harm him. This left him feeling significantly uneasy, leading to aforementioned feigned ignorance of the entire thing.


	3. Warlock Dowling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Antichrist is here.
> 
> Warlock, meanwhile, wonders about his caretakers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Discord people from The GoodOmens FF_BookClub, specifically WyvernQuill, helped with this one quite a bit. Thanks!

Crowley had been greatly enjoying the 21st century when Hastur and Ligur had called him to a meeting at a cemetery somewhere in South England, for no particular reason.

Logically, given his uncanny dislike for both of the above mentioned Dukes of Hell, he was doing his level best to be exactly late enough to annoy, but not late enough to get him discorporated.

It was a fine balance.

And then they handed him a wicker basket with a baby and his world, figuratively, came crashing down around him.

_Fuck._

Oh, this was bad. Scratch that, this was bloody _Armageddon_ , there wasn’t a word in his vocabulary that accurately reflected just how bloody awful this was.[1]

So because he needed to phone the angel, and because he’d inconvenienced the Greater London area enough for the day, Crowley brought the phone networks back online with a snap of his fingers and dialled the angel.

“Aziraphale, we have a problem.”

“Yes, I was just visited by Gabriel. He informed me of the… situation. Come to the bookshop?”

“On my way.”

Neither of them were entirely sure how it had happened, but the next morning, both of them had concocted a vague plan that involved raising a child together (again), but since it was actually a fairly good plan, they went ahead with it anyway.

* * *

Warlock Dowling, from the moment he could think properly, realised his caretakers were a bit strange. For one, he was pretty sure his nanny was a Satanist, and not entirely the raised-in-the-family-kind either.

Either way, both Nanny Ashtoreth and Brother Francis were firm believers in the biblical Armageddon- not to mention convinced it would come soon, and that Warlock himself would have something to do with it.

Also, there was _something_ like love between them, though both seemed utterly blind to it.

They never said any of that, of course, but contrary to the image Warlock portrayed to anyone in eyesight, he wasn’t actually an idiot. Quite the contrary, really, but being a bratty young child was a far more fun pastime than being heralded as some kind of prodigy, so he just pretended to be normal and left it at that.

This was a decision he made when he was 6 and went to school for the first time. It was then he noticed all the stares another very smart kid was getting (he had a very similarly weird name, much like Warlock, though his started with ‘S’.)

Another thing that was a bit strange about Warlock was his fascination with snakes. This was mostly due to the fact that he’d repeatedly spotted a black and red snake in the Dowling’s garden, usually watching Brother Francis or giving the impression it was, anyway.

Something about the small snake seemed familiar, sometimes.

On a whim when he was 8, he’d picked it up. It had let out a very startled hiss at first, but eventually went limp and let itself be petted. Never in the line of sight of Brother Francis, though. So Warlock usually carried the Garden Snake inside or to the porch to pet it or play tag, which the snake was surprisingly good at.

For some reason, Nanny Ashtoreth always knew whenever he played with the snake. Warlock suspected it was her pet. He’d asked her what the snake’s name was, once. She’d looked surprised by the question. “Er… Mambo.”

She’d looked sort of constipated afterward. As did the snake, whenever he called it by name.[2]

In the following years, while his parents started paying him far less attention and instead paid Nanny and Francis more to keep an eye on him. Not that Warlock particularly minded- it was _far_ too much fun to observe the two caretaker’s interactions.

So far (at age 6 and a quarter) he’d concluded both of them had definitely worked together to raise someone in the past, though for some reason neither wanted to talk about it, and they seemed to be employed by rival companies- though how a gardener and a nanny were employed by rival companies he preferred not to dwell on because it meant lending a bit too much credit to an overheard conversation about “upstairs” and “downstairs” and the fact that Ashtoreth kept calling Francis “Angel” and Warlock would really rather remain agnostic.

Of course, said decision went down the drain when he met God on his 9th birthday. She (and the Church would have a right fit at that, he already knew) had sat down on the bench next to him while neither of his caretakers were watching on account of having a conversation somewhere private[3] and smiled very nicely at him.

“Who’re you?” he’d asked.

“I am Brother Francis’ and Nanny Ashtoreth’s mother, young one,” the woman had answered in a very narrator-like voice.

Warlock had blinked for a few moments. “Aren’t they together?”

Somehow, the smile had grown warmer. “In quite a few ways, yes. But in another way, they are both two of my… well, rather a lot of children.”

Warlock had taken in that statement, the general aura of inexplicable _power_ about the woman, put the pieces together and went “Aren’t you supposed to be in Heaven?”

God chuckled. “I suppose one would think that, but I’m trying something at the moment and it rather means I have to play keep-away.”

“Trying something?”

“Think of it as an experiment in Free Will,” She had confided with a secretive wink and vanished just as Francis and Ashtoreth re-appeared on the scene.

Francis had looked remarkably distracted for the rest of the day and Warlock had a feeling it was because angels (which was a thing and a half to wrap his head around in the first place) could sort of sense their surroundings.[4]

And as the year from Warlock’s tenth to his eleventh birthday went by, during which both of his caretakers quit with very uneasy countenances, Warlock himself started to worry. Which led to him researching the Christian apocalypse – Armageddon, apparently – which had been a Mistake.

He was pretty sure he might be the Antichrist.

Also, Nanny Ashtoreth was definitely a demon, but that was entirely beside the point because he had no idea how to not end the world. It occurred to him that if he was the Antichrist, he’d probably _want_ to end the world, actually, so it was quite possible he wasn’t actually the Literal Spawn Of Satan (plus a whole host of other titles, some of which actually sounded kind of cool) after all.

But if he wasn’t the Antichrist, it meant the _actual_ Antichrist was around somewhere, which was Really, Really Bad.

Though since the Real One wasn’t raised by a demonic nanny and quite possibly angelic (actually, Brother Francis _definitely_ was an angel) gardener, it meant He had a normal childhood, which… meant He should be a normal child?

Warlock _really_ needed more facts. Like how exactly Armageddon was supposed to work, here, because there were far too many versions, including one from an American TV show, but that one’s Antichrist hadn’t appeared until the most recent seasons and Armageddon had happened a _lot_ before then, so it wasn’t particularly helpful, never mind that it was rated PG16.

And anyway, tomorrow was his birthday, so he should probably go to sleep now. It was… he cast a glance at the laptop’s clock and blanched… midnight. Oh, he was so lucky his parents were shagging tonight.

Warlock stared, a tad incredulously, at the stage magician who was definitely Brother Francis before letting his eyes sweep around the tent until his eyes caught on a waiter with a very familiar shade of red hair and a really cool snake tattoo.

Huh, apparently Nanny Ashtoreth was a shapeshifter. And possibly Mambo, which explained the embarrassment and the way she walked, or rather sauntered like hips were something that happened to other people.

So however Armageddon was supposed to work, it probably started today. Lovely.

In other news, Francis was a terrible magician. He _could_ , apparently, turn real guns into water pistols, though. So that was sort of neat.

Warlock almost missed his old caretakers leaving, but quickly snuck after them when he noticed them leaving, one child less in the general chaos happening, no matter that it was the birthday boy, not really attracting any attention.

Apparently, there was supposed to be a dog. While it was nice to have confirmation he definitely wasn’t the Antichrist, it also meant the real one was Still Somewhere Else and probably knew about as much about how Not To End The World as Warlock did.

Though apparently, it had something to do with naming a dog, which meant the world was definitely in trouble.

Warlock prided himself on pretending to be a lot more immature than he was, but he also was fairly smart, and one of the first things he’d known was that every young boy wanted a dog for his eleventh birthday.

Another quite possibly Armageddon-related thing had happened the next day – his family took a trip to the Fields of Megiddo.

One look at their guide and Warlock knew Nanny Ashtoreth wasn’t the only demon who thought he was the Antichrist. It was quite possible, he concluded, that the entirety of Hell, and possibly Heaven, thought he was the Great Beast That Was Called Dragon. (Arguably the coolest title.)

Warlock was also very sure that this particular demon was far less nice than his Nanny.

So when the demon asked him if he ever heard voices, he shook his head and answered, “No, but I did meet your Mum once. It was a very confusing birthday.”

The demon had looked very, very perplexed.

“Anyway, I’m not the child you’re looking for, sorry. I think.”

The demonic tour guide had eaten his hat, which Warlock previously thought was an expression, and hiss-groaned, rather murderously, the name “Crowley”.

Warlock was _pret-ty_ sure that was his nanny the demon was currently planning to kill, so he kicked the pale man in the trench coat in the shin. Then his entire family blacked out for some reason.

Warlock woke up on Sunday, very confused. Because it should be Saturday, shouldn’t it?

… He should probably try to find his nanny.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1]Aziraphale, personally, rather liked the sound of “calamitous”, but it wasn’t as if Crowley was going to ask for that with what was happening now.
> 
> [2]Though how a snake looked constipated, he still hadn’t figured out.
> 
> Brother Francis, meanwhile, made a very strange snorting sound the first time he saw Warlock playing with the snake and heard him refer to it by name, which in turn had Mambo make some very strange hissing noises that managed to sound remarkably embarrassed.
> 
> [3] Let it be known that it was actually a conversation, despite Warlock’s being convinced they were doing something entirely different.
> 
> Actually, everyone present at the party had thought Crowley and Aziraphale were doing anything but talking, but, well, neither man-shaped being quite had the people skills to know that.
> 
> [4]He was right, of course. Aziraphale had been extremely distracted when he’d noticed a trace of the Almighty in the garden.
> 
> Crowley had noticed it too but figured he was imagining it.
> 
> He was a demon, despite everything. He highly doubted She would come anywhere near him.


	4. Raphael and the Apocal-Oops-Nevermind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And now, Canon Divergence.

Crowley already knew his day was going wrong yesterday. They’d bloody _lost the Antichrist_ , for Heaven’s – excuse his French – sake! Of course, things could only get worse.

Namely, his superiors had found out[1] and now Aziraphale wasn’t answering his bloody phone after _calling him first_. What was up with that? So now he was flooring it to the bookshop because remembering the angel’s tone of voice during the call had made something in Crowley’s gut twist uncomfortably.

* * *

The bookshop was in flames.

Crowley stared around him at the flames – not Hellfire, thank everything – in disbelief, watching as bookshelves went up in so much fire and smoke. He dearly hoped it was only the smoke stinging his eyes that made him cry.

Another of the little things they pretended didn’t exist was that they always sort of knew where the other was, especially if they were near each other. Mostly they didn’t mention it because in order to sense the other, they had to concentrate on how their own essence felt, which had Implications[2] they’d rather not entertain.

Aziraphale wasn’t in there. In fact, trying to sense him anywhere on the entire planet yielded no results.

Crowley needed to get drunk, and preferably now.

Some time later, he’d evidently drunk enough to have hallucinations, because that was Aziraphale in front of him, though a bit very translucent and feeling like he should cradle the glowing form in his own essence.

He was definitely very drunk.

“Did you go to Alpha Centauri?”

What kind of stupid question was that?

“No. Ssstuff happened. Lost my better half,” he half mumbled, half hissed to the hallucination.

“Oh. I’m… sorry to hear that,” the hallucination did that sad little frowny face Aziraphale had made whenever anyone mentioned Yeshua and Crowley suddenly noticed he could actually properly sense Aziraphale right in front of him.

“Angel, how on Earth did you get here without a body?”

“That’s not exactly important right now, is it, dear? And would you sober up, I don’t think I can stay like this in one place for long and I need to tell you something.”

Crowley sobered up and the urge to take in Aziraphale increased instead of going away. He tried to ignore it. “What isss it?”

Downside of concentrating on ignoring the urge to do one thing, the urge to do the other thing – namely, hissing – won out.

“I found out where we need to go- the Tadfield Air Base. I’ll need to find a willing body…”

Any and all urges won out and Crowley blurted it out. “Why don’t we share mine?”

This visibly short-circuited the angel’s brain. “Are you quite sure- an angel and a demon, that would probably just explode…”

“Angel, the Holy Water didn’t harm me, I think I’ll be fine,” Crowley deadpanned and grabbed Aziraphale’s translucent form, pulling it into himself.

Oh.

_Oh._

* * *

Raphael opened his eyes in a surprised blink.

_ Well, now, my dear, this is… _

_**Unexpected.** _

_**Explains a lot, though.** _

To an outsider, the possibly hallucinating drunk with short  dark red hair suddenly glowed very, very bright and then had longer,  bright red hair and brilliant blue eyes and looked about  five years younger . He also seemed to have changed attire from a black suit to a hospital-scrub-blue t-shirt several sizes too big and dark grey jeans. The transformed stranger still wore the  silver  snake-skin shoes, but his tattoo was now bright gold instead of black, and he was carrying a wooden staff. The staff had a snake wrapping around the top part, which included an apple.

All in all, Raphael was back and very confused, but also remembered he (they? they) were on a mission, so they rather quickly walked out of the stunned bar, climbed up the nearest fire escape and took flight.

_**Huh, three wings.** _

_ White, grey and black. I do believe the Almighty might be trying to tell us something. _

_**When was the last time anyone spoke to Her, anyway?** _

_ Quite possibly two years ago. I sensed remnants of Her presence on young Warlock’s ninth birthday. _

… _**the day he gave up being agnostic.**_

_ Exactly, though I’m surprised you remembered. _

_**How could I not?** _

_**...also, this explains a** _ **lot** **_about Rafoel._ **

_ And why Yeshua found our separate attempts to befriend him so amusing. _

_...is the M25 on fire? _

_**That’s probably my fault.** _

_ Somehow, I’m not surprised. _

It should perhaps be mentioned at this point that Gabriel had loved Raphael quite a lot. In some way, he’d never quite forgiven his Brother for Falling. He’d taken it out on Aziraphale.

So, when he descended on Tadfield Airbase to find four children, but no horsemen, his mood had not been great. And then suddenly, his Brother, whole as the Last Day Before The War, though in a new wardrobe, swooped down from the sky and landed rather protectively in front of the Antichrist and his mood went from ‘bad’ to ‘what’.

“...Raphael?”

“Oh! Hello, Gabriel,” the other Archangel smiled a bit threateningly.

Gabriel had the sudden but intense feeling he’d done something wrong. Beelzebub had no such reservations. “Who izzzz this?”

“Pleasure to meet you- well, no. I’m the Archangel of Healing and Humanity. Name’s Raphael. Adam?”

“Yea?” the Young boy asked a bit hesitantly.

“D’you want the world to end?”

“Not really, sir,” he answered honestly.

“Good answer!” came an entirely different voice.

The entire airbase froze in their spot.

“… hello, Mother,” Raphael went, in the sort of tone that a child who loves their absentee parent very much uses when said parent comes home at midnight, a bit drunk. Fond, accusing and a bit exasperated.

“Hello! I see you figured the Free Will thing out very nicely.”

“Erk,” went Gabriel.

“You know, Free Will? Humanity’s choice between destruction and life- and incidentally a bit of a lesson that children aren’t their parents. Don’t tell me you think I actually wanted my favourite creation gone before it’s time?”

Gabriel and Beelzebub looked a bit sheepish. God sighed. “Really?”

Raphael raised a hand. “Mother, you really could have made the whole thing a bit clearer when you wrote it down…”

God pondered this for a moment. “Perhaps. Rather more fun this way, though.”

“So… no Great Battle, then?” Gabriel asked, just to be sure.

“Don’t destroy the Earth, at least. If you absolutely need to take out your frustrations on each other, do it somewhere that’s not populated. Honestly.”

“You’re curious who’d win, aren’t you?” Pepper asked. The Almighty didn’t answer, which the Them figured meant yes, though what that actually meant, they weren’t sure.

God, Adam pondered, is sort of like a writer talking to Her characters. She doesn’t really care like humans do.

Catching that thought, the Almighty sent Adam a delighted smile.

_ Do you know how to feel about this? _

_**Not even a little bit.** _

_ Do you want to separate, though? _

_**A bit, I think. Being Raphael feels weird after all this time.** _

_ I’m glad you understand, my dear. _

Adam eyed Raphael. He could almost hear them argue with themselves, which was a bit disorienting. “D’you wanna be two again?”

“Oh, yes, that’d be great- oh. Huh,” went suddenly-Crowley-again, while Aziraphale shook of the severe disorientation of having his own body again.

Gabriel looked a bit disappointed.

Crowley, meanwhile, noticed that both his and Aziraphale’s wings appeared to be grey, now. “Huh. I think we can do Raphael whenever we want, now.”

God had already vanished again. She’d done her part.

Gabriel and Beelzebub exchanged glances. “Conference call?”

“Crowley!” barked Beelzebub.

The ex-demon (whatever he was now) looked up. “Yes, my lord?” It came out a bit drily.

“You know about all thizzz… technology. Can you zzzet up a conference call?”

The red-haired snake blinked. “Er. Yes?”

“Come down to Hell tomorrow.”

And there went Gabriel and Beelzebub.

The Them looked at the two ethereal/occult beings left, who were currently looking a bit at a loss. Adam skimmed the red-headed one’s thoughts and gestured to the empty tarmac.

The Bentley, suffice to say, was a bit surprised to suddenly find itself in rural England. “Transport,” Adam went triumphantly.

“Well… thanks.”

And so two not-quite-angels found their way back to London. The next day, they went to St. James’ Park, just planning to relax and feed the ducks.

Warlock, of course, had other plans.

“Nanny?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] The following visit by them had been very enlightening.  
> Holy Water did, in fact, only mildly inconvenience him. Sort of like spilling hot tea on himself.
> 
> Neither Hastur nor Ligur would get the chance to report that, though, on account of being puddles courtesy of one plant mister.  
> If it were anyone else, he’d probably feel a bit guilty, but, well, it was Hastur and Ligur.
> 
> [2]Namely, the Soulmate Thing.  
> So far, it had only happened to humans, and the psychically inclined ones could, indeed, sense their other halves.
> 
> Nobody was entirely sure why the Almighty had invented this phenomenon, seeing how it only occurred in one of about seventy couples, but there it was all the same. It was puzzling.*
> 
> *The Almighty thought nobody needed to know that this was her way of paying tribute to Raphael. Something that sentimental was a bit embarrassing, especially considering The Plan. (Not the Great Plan, or the Ineffable Plan. Just a plan, which had existed since Aziraphale, and had been around long enough for the capital letter but definitely gained a few annotations when that Sugar woman had made the cartoon about sentient gemstones.)


	5. Epilogue "The Antichrists"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yes, this does mean there's a crossover planned between Eve Young and This Mess.

“Nanny?”

Crowley froze and, in unison, both Nephalem[1] turned to find their charge of ten years.

“Warlock? What are you doing here – and how did you recognise Crowley?” Aziraphale asked.

“Oh, I recognised both of you at my birthday party. D’you know what happened to Saturday?” Warlock asked.

The pair exchanged a glance. “How about we do this somewhere more private?” Crowley suggested, eyeing several passersby who looked a bit too curious for his comfort.

And they did, taking Warlock to A. Z. Fell’s Used Books and carefully explaining all that happened, not even leaving out Raphael, especially since the boy’s first question had been if they had ended up finding the Antichrist.

This had also prompted Warlock to explain his side of the story, the conversation from his ninth birthday included.

W hen Crowley asked where his parents were, however, his face had rapidly soured. “ Well, they both don’t really care, so I sorta ran away. I was… kind of hoping you’d let me stay with you, actually,” the boy blushed behind his curtain of brown-gold hair, averting his eyes.

The two exchanged glances again. “Oh, fine,” Crowley relented. “He can stay at my place.”

Aziraphale beamed at him, which in turn prompted the ex-demon to blush a bit.

* * *

Life continued on fairly normally after that – Warlock got enrolled in a public school, which he found terrific after the stuffy private one he’d gone to previously, Aziraphale and Crowley sort of but not really dated and very occasionally, Raphael would visit their siblings.

Everything was fine.

And then, one morning, Adam Young called A. Z. Fell’s.

“ _Um, excuse me, is this the angel’s bookshop?”_

“Ah- Adam? Yes, it is – I do need to thank you for restoring it, too. What is it?”

“ _I think you should come to Tadfield. There’s a girl here, and I think she’s like me.”_

All three of them piled into the Bentley that day and drove to Tadfield at speeds that definitely weren’t legal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1]Aziraphale, after Crowley had taught him how to use Google, had found the term online. Apparently, it was meant for the offspring of an angel and a demon, but since neither of them had found a more fitting term, they’d went with it anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> [1]Including time, so one would argue ne never existed at all.
> 
> [2]Gender was a rather novel concept, but Crawly found that the idea of being “male” appealed more to him, most days.
> 
> [3]This may come as a surprise to you, dear Reader, or not, but Crawly was nigh untainted for a demon. The others Below had certainly noticed and were still wondering just who he used to be*.
> 
> *It may be prudent to note here that Crawly did not remember being an angel beyond a vague feeling of unbridled joy.
> 
> [4]Though from what, he was unsure. Memories from before he was Crawly were, again, rather nonexistent. He thought he had been asking questions, but whom?
> 
> [5] At least, the angel seemed to prefer being a "him".


End file.
